We highly recommend beginning the installation process from a non-provisioned server (bare metal).

To install an x64-based version of Windows Server 2008 on the two servers that will be in the failover cluster

Manually install an x64-based version of Windows Server 2008 on both servers from a distribution DVD or from a network installation location. As described in the software Requirements section in Overview and Requirements for Windows HPC Server 2008 in a Failover Cluster, for failover clustering, you need to use the Windows Server 2008 Enterprise or Windows Server 2008 Datacenter operating system.

Join the servers to an appropriate Active Directory domain (this domain must be part of the public network).

Restart the servers.

Verify that the network interfaces on the servers are recognized, have the necessary drivers, and have been assigned the appropriate IP addresses. You can do this in either of two ways:

From Server Manager, click View Network Connections, and verify that each network interface is working properly and that the drivers have been correctly installed.

From Server Manager, in the Navigation pane, expand Diagnostics, and then select Device Manager. In the Device Manager view pane, expand Network adapters, right-click each adapter, and then select Properties to verify that each network interface is working properly and that the driver has been correctly installed.

From Server Manager, verify that no server roles are configured on the servers.

The servers are now ready to be configured as a failover cluster.

Note

We strongly recommend that you perform a clean installation of Windows Server 2008 before installing HPC Pack 2008.